


Time Will Tell

by 2raggedclaws



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-19
Updated: 2020-06-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:29:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24809320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/2raggedclaws/pseuds/2raggedclaws
Summary: From LJ July 14, 2012, probably was up on Tumblr, too.I find it interesting that peacocks have traditionally been associated with the ideas of love, watchfulness, and protection. In some traditions, much as the Phoenix, the peacock is also a symbol of rebirth and redemption.
Relationships: Jorah Mormont & Daenerys Targaryen, Jorah Mormont/Daenerys Targaryen
Comments: 3
Kudos: 20





	Time Will Tell

**Author's Note:**

> From LJ July 14, 2012, probably was up on Tumblr, too.
> 
> I find it interesting that peacocks have traditionally been associated with the ideas of love, watchfulness, and protection. In some traditions, much as the Phoenix, the peacock is also a symbol of rebirth and redemption.

Time Will Tell

Jorah sat in front of his tent, the naked blade of his sword across his knees. It was dusk, and the khalasar was starting to quiet. The soft sounds of cooking and camp tasks floated dully on the air, replacing the sharper tones of the daylight hours. The sun had dipped below the horizon giving way to the blue sky of evening, and the flames from his small fire leapt and danced along the steel. 

He gazed to his right across the field where the khalasar had stopped for the evening, the extent of the host marked out by its cook-fires. The heat of the red waste was unrelenting, but the evenings were chill in comparison, and the air carried with it the smell of horse and sweat, smoke and roasting meat. 

Jorah took a deep breath and felt himself relax. The evening was calm, and they would all live to see the morning. These days, that was often more than could be wished for. He sighed and reached behind him for the small bag in which he kept the tools for working on his sword. Shaking loose a cloth, he began to wipe down the blade, looking for rust and removing the old layer of protective oil.

Jorah enjoyed this work, enjoyed an intimacy with his weapon, with the main tool of his trade. With the badge of his office as a knight, a sworn sword … once, as a lord. He also enjoyed the mindlessness of the routine, each step in the same order each time, each step requiring deep concentration, but not thought. He even enjoyed the deep rich burn that built up in his right shoulder as he bore down on the blade. Not all callouses are physical, he mused.

Next, he reached for a small glass bottle with a stopper. Bear oil. The best for the care of swords. In days past the oil that had graced his blade had come from a bear he’d hunted himself, tracked for hours or days through the deep woods of Bear Island. The last bottle of that had run out years ago. This he’d bought from a merchant trader, and he would soon need some more. He wondered idly if the oil rendered from horse fat would serve as he poured a thin line down the flat of the blade. To this he added fine sand, carried for the purpose, and with another cloth bore down on the mixture, scouring the blade of rust. The heat built up in his shoulder and he flipped the blade across his knee, scattering firelight across his face as he did so. He repeated the process and then wiped the sword down again, cleaning it of sand and of oil. 

He raised the weapon with one hand, running light down the blade. Observing its features and its flaws, its nicks and scars. 

It was a good sword. Plain, but serviceable. Leather wrapped grip, one fuller on each side of the blade, and, most importantly, a fine balance. The weight of the blade was off-set perfectly by the counterweight of the pommel, and the cross guard was well placed. He turned it, examining the other side. Yes, a good sword. 

Oh it was no Longclaw, not by a stretch. He could barely remember how Longclaw had felt in his hand, it had been so many years since he had left it behind him in disgrace, tidily wrapped in its scabbard and leathers where it would be properly found long after he was gone. Gone without a word. 

He reached down for his sharpening stone and paused for a moment over the peacock feathered scabbard at his feet, the eyes along its length waking and darkening as the flames shifted. 

No, it was no Longclaw, but it was a better blade than the one it replaced.

When he had fled his hall on Bear Island he had left with a few belongings, with Lynesse, and with his sword hip vacant. Having given up Longclaw, he had not bothered to find another blade. A ship to Lys did not seem overly dangerous, and he still had his dagger should anything require it. But his sword … his sword was bound up with honour and that, well … he had liked the reminder that he was given each time he was made aware of the empty space on his sword hip, the air under his sword hand, the ease in his walking. It had humbled him, made him feel naked. He had borne it like penance. 

But Lynesse … Lynesse had not understood. Or she had, but couldn’t bear being seen with a swordless knight. Whatever the reason, the day after their arrival in Lys she had made him a gift of a new blade. She had used his money to pay for it, and rather a lot of it at that, but as he undid the parcel he knew instantly that she had picked it out herself. 

It was a blade from songs and storybooks. A blade for a tourney knight, not a fighter from Bear Island. It was, in truth, the blade that had ended whatever hopes he’d had for rekindling their marriage. For the sword spoke of what she wished him to be as surely as it announced that she had accepted nothing of who he was.

The hilt had been wrapped in soft leather and secured with decorative studs that had slipped in his hand and tore at his skin. The cross guard and pommel were chased with gold, and the counterweight had been a large piece of green glass cunningly carved to give the appearance of being of a precious stone and which caught the light, sending a shimmering trail before and behind him. The blade itself had been serviceable enough, though a trail of flowers coursed down the fullers and it sat too lightly in the hand, made for flourishing rather than for hacking a man in two through layers of leather and plate. It had been housed in a scabbard of peacock feathers, and when she belted it around his waist he knew that it was hopeless and that he’d lost everything for nought.

He ran the sharpening stone down both sides of the sword on his knee, feeling for burs and nicks. He stopped over the rough spots, smoothing them out and then honing the edge until it was uniform from hilt to tip. 

The sound of laughter caught his ear and his glanced across at Daenerys’ tent. It was darker now, the first stars appearing from the darkest parts of the sky and though the horizon still shone with blue, the lamps in her tent were showing their dull warm glow through the walls. Inside a shape moved close enough to one of them to cast a shadow … Irri, Jorah thought, fetching water or wine and making the Khaleesi laugh. 

Daenerys. 

The thought of her brought a new pain into his chest. A comfortable one he did not mind bearing, though it cut nonetheless. 

Dany. 

Dany, who had brought him close to home again. Close to love again as well and, when he realized that Robert wished her harm in addition to information, had brought him far, far too close to besmirching his honour once more. At the time it had been that he did not wish the blood of an innocent girl to be the price that brought him home and afterwards … well, afterwards was now, and his heart pained and his breath caught to think of it. 

He reached down by his scabbard for the bear oil and cast a few drops down one side of the blade. Reaching for the cloth again he began to work the oil into the metal, securing it for the while against rust and corrosion.

When he had returned from the Rhoyne to find Lynesse gone he had sold the sword she’d given him immediately. It had fetched a good price, and had kept him fed and ahorse as he drifted seeking companionship and labour. Seeking purpose. Seeking a way home.

The sword he carried now had been part of the bargain for Lynesse’s blade, but he’d kept the scabbard. He reached for it now and slid the blade home. Turned it in his hand to wake the blue and green luminescence of the feathers. Felt the smoothness of them under his fingers. 

Yes, the scabbard was good. It served as reminder of his folly, and as a reminder of the goodness that had been once between he and Lynesse. It had been so long ago it was hard to remember at times and this, this helped to keep the bitterness at bay. She couldn’t have changed her nature anymore than he could change his. 

Another lamp was lit in Daenerys’ tent, and Jorah gazed for a long while across the waste toward it. 

Yes, for a fortnight he had been the happiest man in the world. A man with glory and honour, with a seat to return to and money with which to bedeck and amuse his lady love. A fortnight.

Yet as he sat in the darkness with his sword listening to the murmur of the khalasar around him, it struck Jorah that here, in the waste and desert, with heat and death and hopelessness all around, despite the blood and doubt and danger … here, he had been happy for months. 


End file.
